Face to Face: The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886-1904, a new exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), makes its debut on June 15, 2014. One of the exhibit’s co-curators is Professor Emerita Jane Block, Ph.D., who recently retired as head of the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Face to Face: The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886-1904 is the first exhibition devoted solely to portraits of the Neo-Impressionist movement at the IMA. More than 30 paintings and 20 works of paper illustrate the finest examples of Neo-Impressionist portraiture by artists such as Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross, and Vincent van Gogh. The iconic portrait of Félix Fénéon by Signac will be shown for the first time in 30 years outside of New York City.

Dr. Block, a widely published author and distinguished scholar of 19th-century Franco-Belgian art and culture, conceived the idea for the exhibition and authored two essays and many of the entries on the works of art in The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886-1904. This fully-illustrated, 250-page exhibit catalog, published by Yale University, is the first comprehensive survey of Neo-Impressionist portraiture.

“Despite the growing interest in the Neo-Impressionist movement as a whole, portraits in this style have never been treated separately, and thus much of their significance has been overlooked,” said Dr. Block. “By focusing on the sitters, and interweaving aspects of biography, color theory, music, and literature with matters of style, the exhibition will analyze these unique and powerful portraits as reflections of their age and shed new light on their importance as works of art.”

A sister exhibit opened at the ING cultural Centre in Brussels on February 19 and concluded on May 18, 2014.

IMA’s Face to Face: The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886-1904 exhibition runs through September 7, 2014. For more information, visit http://www.imamuseum.org/exhibition/face-face-neo-impressionist-portrait-1886-1904.